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Jersey's Royal Court has made a landmark decision in a long-running multi-million trusts row between the family members of the former Seigneur of St. John.
Newly-released Court papers show that Tanya Dick-Stock (55) - daughter of former St. John’s Manor resident and honorary Rwandan consul, John William Dick (83) - will now be excluded from two family trusts, and that the money in them can't be used to continue legal battles against her father.
The ruling came about after Mr Dick wrote letters to GB Trustees in March 2018 and August 2019 requesting that his daughter be excluded from the trusts – one of which included St. John’s Manor.
In them, he explained that he felt his daughter’s conduct was having a negative impact on the value of the trusts, and had actually “contributed to the need to sell” the iconic Jersey property, which ended up going for £7m below its expected sale price of £21m.
Meanwhile, Mrs Dick-Stock argued to GB Trustees that the money in the trusts should be used to take legal action against her father, who she accused of having previously ‘looted’ the trusts, alongside others.
GB Trustees agreed with Mr Dick, and disagreed with his daughter - the firm then applied to the Royal Court in January to "bless" the “momentous decision”, which it did last month.
Pictured: The case was heard in the Royal Court last month.
The reasons for their decision have only been made public in an official Court judgment detailing the family fall-out this week.
Mrs Dick-Stock and her brother, John William Dick II (51), were made beneficiaries of the trusts – known as the Manor House Trust and the Russian Trust – when they were children.
The trustees of each changed a number of times over the years, with the whole family reportedly “united” in 2015 in a bid to remove a former employee of Mr Dick, Richard Wigley, and his son, James Wigley, as trustees and to repatriate the trusts to Jersey.
However, the Court’s judgment said that, from 2017, Ms Dick-Stock’s relationship with her father and brother “broke down, it would seem irretrievably”, with the years that followed marred by a number of legal battles involving the trusts, both in Jersey, and abroad.
In 2018, she launched proceedings in Cyprus relating to the Russian Trust - whose main asset is a £1.5m flat in St. Petersburg, which Mrs Dick-Stock previously lived in - which ultimately fell through, and took legal action in the US against her father, “claiming fraudulent and/or unlawful behaviour, theft and deception on his part over the course of the past several decades in relation to trusts and entities in which she held a beneficial interest, claiming damages of some $200 million.”
Pictured: One of the trusts includes a flat in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The trial of the claims against Mr Dick is due to be heard in August of this year.
She also applied in Jersey in 2018 to remove GB Trustees as trustee of both trusts - an application opposed by her father, as well as her brother and his family.
The court judgment explained that such legal battles had come at a high cost to the trusts and other parties, “not far off £1 million.”
The Court added that Mrs Dick-Stock had not paid the costs due in her unsuccessful Jersey legal battles, leading her to be found in contempt of court and prevented from taking part in further legal proceedings in the island until these are paid.
The Court documents say that she has also not paid her own lawyers, with US attorneys claiming to be owed $414,271.01, and Jersey firms Carey Olsen and Mourant Ozannes claiming to be owed £267,424.70 and £498,378.49 respectively.
The official judgment said her husband had written to GB Trustees claiming that he was owed £1.4m for transfers to the Manor House Trust in 2013 in relation to a bank loan charged over St. John’s Manor. But the claims - described by GB Trustees’ representative Advocate Mike Preston as “frivolous and vexatious” - were not taken forward.
Pictured: Mrs Dick-Stock was told she was not allowed to participate in further Jersey legal proceedings until she paid the costs of previous cases.
In April 2020, GB Trustees considered that it was "not appropriate” for Mrs Dick-Stock to be able to continue accessing the wealth.
This decision was said to be made in light of the fact that the trusts were already significantly depleted - partially due to St. John’s Manor selling for much less than anticipated - with available funds only totalling £3.5 to £4m, and the fact that Mrs Dick-Stock had, in their view, “continued to display an unremitting hostility to the interests of the trusts.”
When this was communicated to Mrs Dick-Stock, the judgment said she responded in “what can only be described as abusive terms, alleging a 25-year irrefutable fraud by her father, in which she said GB Trustees, and people in Jersey, were providing legal, financial and political cover.”
“She alleged that Garfield-Bennett English Solicitors, the legal firm that is associated with GB Trustees, had a clear and insurmountable conflict, with Advocate Preston and GB Trustees engaging in a cover-up of the alleged bank fraud, allegations which are denied. She demanded that GB Trustees inform the Court of these matters immediately, and once again demanded that GB Trustees resign as trustee immediately,” the judgment said.
Pictured: St. John's Manor - one of Jersey's most iconic properties dating all the way to the 1300s - sold for much less than originally anticipated. (Island Wiki)
In proceedings held in January, GB Trustees asked for the Royal Court to approve their decision to exclude her from the trusts, also drawing attention to the fact that she had made complaints against them to the island's financial regulator, the JFSC, which the trustees claimed were “without any merit.”
They further noted: “In concert with her husband, she had liaised with various investigative journalists in order to arrange the publication of articles in the printed press, as well as online and in other media, aimed at denigrating John William Dick I, the former trustees of the trusts, the trust industry in Jersey generally and the authorities in Jersey, including the judiciary and GB Trustees.
“In essence, she claims that all losses that she claims to have suffered are the responsibility of her father, who in turn has controlled all others (including the judiciary in Jersey) in a conspiracy against her. GB Trustees considers this but the latest evidence that she will stop at nothing to denigrate whatever the merits or costs involved, and this to the lasting detriment of the trusts.”
Pictured: Articles published in the international media about the Dick family row.
While the Royal Court declined Mrs Dick-Stock’s request to participate in January's hearing, as she was still barred due to being in contempt of Court, it said that it would nonetheless consider some of her views.
This included a claim that GB Trustees were biased towards her father’s interests due to the “friendship" between him and Director Oliver Egerton-Vernon’s own father.
The Court heard that Mr Egerton-Vernon had himself known the Dick family since the age of 12.
However, the Court concluded that it was “not at all unusual for families to wish to have as trustees persons who are known to them and in whom they have confidence.”
The Court also considered a claim made in a media article that Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith OBE, who heard the case alongside Jurats Jerry Ramsden and Robert Christensen, was conflicted because a firm he worked for in the 1980s provided legal services on the creation of Mr Dick’s former finance firm, La Hougue.
“The Commissioner has no recollection of his involvement in the formation of these companies, but for the avoidance of any doubt, the Commissioner can confirm that to the best of his knowledge he has had no involvement in the activities of these companies and has never advised, met or communicated with Tanya Stock, [her husband] Darrin Stock, John William Dick I, John William Dick II, Richard Wigley or James Wigley in whatever capacity," the judgment read.
“Accordingly, he is satisfied that he has no conflict in presiding over these applications and in his view, no fair minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility that he would be biased.”
Mrs Dick-Stock had argued that the family trusts should be used to start legal action against her father - who the Court understood to now be living in the US with his third wife in "much reduced circumstances" - and the Wigleys to “recover losses” allegedly resulting from “breaches of trust, fraud, and other unspecified causes of action going back decades.”
As a beneficiary of the trusts, her brother was said to be “vehemently against” using the trust funds in this way, while GB Trustees noted that going ahead would “be prohibitively expensive to the point of extinguishing all of the assets in the trusts” with potentially little or no return.
Such litigation, it was estimated, could mean going through 1.5 million pages of documents - a process that could cost £4m alone, which Mrs Dick-Stock was apparently unwilling to fund herself.
Pictured: It was estimated that an investigation into the trusts' history would involve pouring through 1.5 million pages of documents.
While the Royal Court said that further investigations into the past history of the trusts, which it described as "murky, not least because [previous trustees'] formally asserted position is that the trusts are shams", may reveal possible reasons to take legal action against Mr Dick and the Wigleys, it agreed that this would be extremely expensive, involving lawyers and forensic accountants.
The Court also said the "question would then arise" as to whether the defendants in any case "have any assets to pay and whether those assets can be located."
It added that the position of John William Dick II and his family, consisting of his wife and three children, "is that they want an end to all litigation and to move forward".
"Quite simply, they do not wish the trust funds to be invested in investigating and pursuing those involved in the trusts’ past, so that the much-diminished assets that now remain can be used for their future benefit," the Court explained.
Concluding, the Court said that it would therefore be "eminently prudent" not to place "what is left of the trust funds" at risk when there is "no clear prospect" of winning any money back, and when "all but one of the beneficiaries are against" further legal action.
It subsequently agreed with GB Trustees that the family wealth - from which Mrs Dick-Stock will be excluded - should not be used to fund further legal proceedings.
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